


Movement Of Things Unseen

by Nope



Category: Dark Is Rising Sequence - Susan Cooper
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-03-19
Updated: 2004-03-19
Packaged: 2018-10-23 14:13:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10720950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nope/pseuds/Nope
Summary: Barney, almost.





	Movement Of Things Unseen

"Is there a word," asks Barney and stops.  
  
"A word...?"  
  
"When there's something on the tip of your tongue, but you can't quite remember what?"  
  
"I don't think so," says Will. They're sitting in his office. There are books everywhere. Old books in dead languages. Something classical on the radio, almost Gregorian, voices rising and falling with perfect cadence. Old chairs. Old desk. Will's eyes, older than them all. "Why?"  
  
Barney shakes his head, picks a paperweight off the desk, turns it over and over. Will is still watching. The glass owl flutters in his hand, wings beating against his palms. The chanting, rises, falls; he smells salt, hears gulls, waves lapping against the bow of a boat. He closes his eyes, hears the door open from a great distance.  
  
"...ready to go?" asks Bran. He's tapping a silver paper-cutter against his hand as he walks around the desk. Will leans forward in his chair, takes the knife from Bran, puts it on the desk. Keeps his hold on Bran's hand, lifts it, presses his lips to the too-white knuckles. Barney dreams in colour but Bran is always black-and-white, save for his golden regal stare.  
  
They're both looking at him. There is a shape here. Will and Bran and Barney. Something old, repeating. Like the chanting. Like a Celtic knot. Like DNA, twisted and entwined and repeating down through time. Small but impossibly significant. And it's right there, bright, if he could just reach out--  
  
"Barney," says Will, taking the paperweight from his hand. "It's time."  
  
Barney blinks up at him.  
  
"We're going now, remember?"  
  
He nods, stands; is half-way to the door when he realises the music is still playing. Voices, rising, falling. He turns them off. Looks around. The room feels like a shrine, but he no longer remembers to what. Just that sense of 'almost'. He leaves, closing the door behind him. Will shuts it tight, locks it.  
  
On the desk, the glass owl flutters, once, twice, and falls silent.


End file.
